WCU Digital Collections

07/15/2025

Special and Digital Collections is excited to introduce our new digitization workstation, the DT Ion! We've been training with super helpful folks from Digital Transitions. It will be a leap forward in quality and workflow--and we can't wait to get started!

07/03/2025

The fourth of July holiday always makes me think of family and friends gathering, boat rides, and picnics. Here is a random assortment of images that are from film brought to Sherrill’s Photography Studio in downtown Waynesville for developing, but never picked up. The only clue we have is a name on the envelope. If you recognize any people or places, let us know! Also, check out our Mystery Photos website mysteryphotos.wcu.edu to see if you might recognize any of the people in the photographs or search for a name under the “More Names” tab and request images from any name that you may recognize.

06/18/2025

We were sad to see the old White Oak Tree fall over the weekend of June 6th. And just how old was the tree? We’ve heard that a core sample was taken in 2021 and it was determined to be between 240-280 years old. The tree was a big part of what made the view from Special Collections Reading Room so interesting, and it will be dearly missed.

Pictured here is an aerial view from around 1929 when both the new and old Cullowhee Baptist church were in place, a view of church from the school’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1939, a view beyond the football field from 1941, a few-recent day photographs, and some from after the tree’s fall.

03/03/2025

Thank you, Loran for teaching the library Wet Recovery skills today. It was vey interesting and we learned a lot. Hopefully we won’t ever need these skills, but if we do, we’re ready.

02/24/2025

Walter Berry is doing a handstand, Jim Thompson is taking his picture from the trail, and Guy Frizzell is standing on top of Charlies Bunion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This National Park photo from 1935 is part of the Carlos C. Campbell collection that we are in the process of putting online. With such beautiful days in the upcoming week, it is time to get out and hike, but please don’t try this handstand on the trail!

02/14/2025

These Valentines are from our Judge Frederick Moore Family collection. They were received by Margaret Moore in 1919 from her students while she was a student teacher attending Greensboro College for Women. The collection includes correspondence from 1894-1896 and 1908 from her father, Judge Fred Moore, to her mother, Lela Enloe, before and after they were married. Fred was writing from Webster, Asheville, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

1910s

02/06/2025

We just put online a series of about 100 images taken by James Baldwin Shelton (1886-1977) prior to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the Elkmont area. This is a community picnic held at the end of the school year, likely in Elkmont, date unknow. J. B. Shelton grew up in the Smoky Mountains and married Sarah “Caroline” Walker, whose sisters are famous for securing a lifetime lease to remain in their home, becoming a living museum when the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created. Shelton carried his bulky camera, glass plates, and tripod around the mountains and processed his plates in a darkroom over a stream near his house. To browse all of the images: https://tinyurl.com/3tn9as2y

01/17/2025

The Mountain Heritage Center (located in Hunter Library on WCU’s campus) opened a new exhibit today, Friday, January 17 “A Stranger No More” which reintroduces the life and photography of George Masa. The exhibit pairs beautifully with one of our newest manuscript collections donated by Bill and Alice Hart. The Hart’s have been curating their Masa collection for many years and Bill has provided a mountain of contextual information to go along with it. We have a portion of the collection online already and are working diligently on more, link in the bio. Also not to be missed and fairly new on the shelves, is a book by Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel, “George Masa: A Life Reimagined” which reads like a novel you don’t want to put down. All of this is in gratitude, as we owe a lot to Masa whose photography skills, diligent mapping, and persistence played a major role in preserving the mountains that surround us.

01/02/2025

If you haven't already, be sure to check out our Unclaimed Envelope collection from Sherrill's Photography Studio on our website: mysteryphotos.wcu.edu

Years ago, residents and tourists brought their film for developing at Sherrill’s Photography Studio in Waynesville. Sometimes, the person who dropped off the film did not return to pick up their photographs and the only clue to their identity was their last name written on the unclaimed envelope.

11/11/2024

For Veterans Day we are sharing some military “home on leave” images that are from film brought to Sherrill’s Photography Studio in downtown Waynesville for developing, but never picked up. The only clue we have is a name on the envelope - which is included in the caption of each image. If you recognize any people or places, let us know!

Visit our Mystery Photos website to learn more and to see if you might be able to solve any mysteries for us: https://mysteryphotos.wcu.edu/

11/01/2024

The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club got its start 100 years ago after Jim Eslinger led this group of outdoor enthusiasts up the rugged slopes of Mount LeConte October 18-19, 1924 – well before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established.

On the reverse of this photographs is written: Group on Main Top of Mt. LeConte, Oct. 1924. It was this trip which crystalized sentiment, which had been growing for some time, for the formation of a hiking club and resulted in the organization of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club. Oct. 1924.

Left to right: Chas. I Barber, Frank Wilson (seated), W. Baxter Gase, Guy Barber, Chas. Kane, Chas. F. Lester, Marshall A Wilson, Louise Smith, L. Ceaser Stair, Douglass Smith, Besse Geagley, Geo. F. Barber W. H. McCroskey, Carlos C. Campbell, J. S. McKinney, Picture by Jim Thomson Others on trip, but not in the picture: A. L. Chavannes, Neal B. Splahr, Hugh M. White, Jim Eslinger (guide).

09/20/2024

Welcome to the alumni who are gathering this weekend for the Sylva-Webster High School Alumni Fest. Here are a few pages from the 1966 Sylva-Webster High School yearbook for you to enjoy!


downtownsylva